Interactive music playlists.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

They say that music tends to give listeners an idea of the music's mood, and no doubt some of you would feel awkward hearing a normally quiet track in the midst of a tense battle, or a heart-pounding track in the midst of building stuff in relative peace. (I know I feel that way.) So, what I'd like to propose, if we're going to include user-generated music, is that we separate them into one of 3 groups of playlists: calm tracks for when there's relatively little-to-no action (such as building your base), somewhat tense tracks for when there's some action, though it's not a large-scale battle (such as if you're exploring), and finally, some intense heart-pounding tracks for when there's a lot of fighting (such as if you're trying to lay waste to an enemy's base, or vice-versa).

An example of an rts game with interactive playlists of music like this is Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, with quiet tracks like "Base Repairs" and "Yellow Dawn", somewhat tense tracks like "Return to Base" and "Drop Attack", and intense battle tracks that play during a heated battle like "Apocalypse" and "Deadly Force".

[macuser]

Hmm... Great Idea. Love it.

Now, how to implement it?

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Well 1st we'll need people to compose music tracks that fit within one of these playlists. After that's done, then it should only be a matter of coding the game to give it an idea as to what kinds of situations the player is in. If the player hasn't moved their units all that much, and hasn't been attacked, then a playlist full of quiet music tracks should play. If the player is often moving units long distances, or if the player has engaged in small-scale combat with a handful of enemy units or structures, then a playlist full of somewhat tense music tracks should play. Finally, if the player is actively engaged in a large-scale battle with the enemy, such as attacking an enemy base or enemy task force, then a playlist full of intense heart-pounding music tracks should play.

[macuser]

Would constantly checking be rather cpu intensive.

I propose that the system only need to check those criteria each time a track finishes. That way it does not eat up a lot of cpu.

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

Or even have the check occur only when the game is first launched. Then there's nearly *no* cpu useage at all.

[macuser]

I mean checking for unit activity - to tell what song it should be playing - slow, med or excited

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

The game may use one or more counters while checking as to whether to change playlists, such as one counter for keeping track of the total distance traveled by the player's units over X seconds, another counter for keeping track of how many of the player's units are actively attacking enemy units, and yet another counter for keeping track of how many enemy units are actively attacking the player's own units. The check could indeed be done each time a music track finishes, but I doubt that performing the check each frame or step would be resource-intensive, as I'd expect it to perform some relatively simple arithmetic (adding up the difference traveled over X seconds/frames by your units, or how many units on the map are actively attacking other units) and see if it exceeds a certain (usually fixed) value.

[cybersphinx]

I think master has some danger map code for the ai that is already updated automatically, this could possibly be used to determine the current mood. A test implementation could just output console messages, then you don't need music first (or use placeholder tracks from wherever). For changing tracks I don't think after each track would work well, you'd need much smaller intervals to make the mood changes effective.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

I think master has some danger map code for the ai that is already updated automatically, this could possibly be used to determine the current mood. A test implementation could just output console messages, then you don't need music first (or use placeholder tracks from wherever). For changing tracks I don't think after each track would work well, you'd need much smaller intervals to make the mood changes effective.

I'd only recommend immediately ending the previous track to switch to a new playlist for when the player engages in a heated battle with an enemy force. Other than that, we should let the tracks run their course before considering changing playlists. Otherwise, we'd have a lot of tracks abruptly ending when the mood changes from quiet to slightly tense, or vice-versa.

[macuser]

Maybe fade in/out?

[milo christiansen]

Maybe fade in/out?

+1

[Boris]

and how to make scripts for game music with nooo errors ..